Boise State

Wow. What a game. Boise State looked good in the beginning, and it looked like that game was going to be a blowout. The Broncos scored on the first drive of the game in less than 2 minutes. The Beavers then gave up a turnover and BSU got the ball back and converted on that drive as well. 12-0. The Beavers had all but given up hope, until 5-9 Sophomore Yvenson Bernard ran untouched strait up the middle 51 yards for the Beavers first TD with 2 seconds remaining in the first quarter. 14-7 Broncos.
From there the Broncos converted a 33 yard field goal, then the Beavers marched it down the field for a touchdown with just over three minutes left. Boise State got the ball back, marched it up near the goal line, took a timeout, ant then in an interesting call, chose to go for the touchdown with 1 tic left on the clock. At this point BSU was up 17-14, and a touchdown would have gave the Broncos a huge upperhand going into the locker room. Freshman DB Keenan Lewis had a great dive to knock the ball away from the Bronco receiver and end the first half. Beavers down by an Alexis Serna field goal at half.
Another special teams nightmare marked the start of the second half. Nate Wright fumbled the return giving BSU the ball on the OSU 31 to start their drive. They took advantage, and scored in 5 plays to go up 24-14.
In the following drives, Oregon State kicked two field goals in scenarios where I think they could have scored. Beavers within 4. The Beavers only kept that margin for 2 and a half minutes as BSU kicked a field goal as time expired in the third quarter. 27-20.
Ah, the fourth quarter at last. Midway through, Mike Moore completed a 22 yard TD pass to fellow receiver Mike Hass to tie the ball game. Hass high stepped into the end zone, drawing a 15 yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty that was assessed on the kickoff. With ok field position, Boise State went three and outâ€¦. Bigtime. Reser was louder that loud at this point, causing a sack, a QB scramble that yielded nothing, and If I remember correctly, an incomplete pass. BSU ended up with a 4th and 23 opportunity, in which case they punted. The Beaver kick returner, canâ€™t remember which one, smartly called for the fair catch, after two prior fumbles on returns.
Oregon State marched the ball down the field, smartly running time off the clock. A couple QB sneaks, one scramble in which case Moore took a big hit, and the Beavers ended up with a 4th and 4 from the 22 at the right hash mark. There goes #13, Alexis Serna, on to attempt the potentially game winning field goal. Similar to LSU last year? He’s definitely trying to block that out of the back of his mind, as he struts onto the field. Nice Snap. Colt Charles with the hold. Its up. Its Good!!! Beavers take their first lead of the game. 30-27. With a minute three left, the Broncos still had a chance with their powerful offense to strike it in the end zone. The Broncos can’t get it done, and Reser is Rockin’. On the last play of the game, BSU QB Jared Zabranski throws incomplete. Beavers win!

Positional Summaries:

Offense

Offensive Line
Not the best performance here. I think they were outmatched against Boise State’s D Line, but that’s just my opinion. They allowed 4 sacks, which is more than you want. One where the linebacker was untouched and just swallowed Matt Moore.

QB
Matt Moore had another great day. 27 for 38 with 279 yards, not bad. Out passed BSU QB Jared Zabranski, who accumulated 233 yards. He looked good all around. Oregon State didn’t run nearly as many screen plays as they did last week, and Boise State killed us a couple times on the option.

Running Backs
The Running backs were ok. They looked better on the field than they do on paper. 30 attempts for 88 yards. Yvenson Bernard had a great run up the middle for a 51 yard touchdown as time expired in the first quarter that really got the Beavers back in the game. Without that run, I think the Beavers are too down on themselves to get back in the game any other way. Plus, the running game only gets 37 yards on the game give or take.

Wide Receivers
What can I say. Mike Hass had a great game, with 178 yards on 11 catches and moves to #3 on the all-time receiving chart at OSU. Josh Hawkins also had a good day. Anthony Wheat-Brown looked a little shaky. I think he had an ankle injury or something like that.

Tight Ends
The only tight end play I remember is in the fourth quarter on the Beavers final drive, when Matt Moore threw to Dan Haines, and he dropped it. Very next play, Moore threw to Haines again, and he got the first down.

Defense

Defensive Line
The Defense did just enough to pull out the win. They had the Reser crowd really going late in the game. That had to be a factor as Boise State seamed to have trouble getting plays in. The final play of the game, on a third down with 13-odd seconds left, they could of spiked the ball and regrouped on fourth down, but Zebranski got his guys back to the line and ended up throwing the ball incomplete.

Linebackers
I’m not in that big of a habit of watching the Linebackers especially. I tend to watch the offense and barely notice the D. That’s normal I guess. The Linebackers combined for 36 tackles, 5 for a loss.

DB’s
Mixed Bag. Left Corner Gerard Lawson had me pretty upset early, as he couldn’t even stay close to his guy. Boise State noticed it and used it to their advantage. He came back and had a good second half though. The other CB, Keenan Lewis, made some phenomenal plays, like his dive do disrupt Bronco receiver Jerard Rabb from scoring to end the first half. Sabby had a good day. He really gave former Beaver Cole Clasen a hard hit after a catch but Cole managed to hang on to the ball.

Special Teams

Oh Boy. The good, the bad, and the ugly. With the exception of the blocked punt by Freshman Victor Butler, the crucial and game winning field goals made by Alexis Serna, and some Ok punts by Sam Paulescu, special teams didn’t have a good day. Bad coverages leading to 3 big returns and 196 return yards total, bad snaps and fumbled returns, all plagued Oregon State throughout the game.

Game Experience

Our seats were in the new side of Reser this time, right smack dab on the fifty about 10 rows above the students. Great Seats. Nobody walked by us the whole game. We were barely under the cover. If you lean foreword, you’re wet. Lean back, your dry.
There was some interesting weather at the game. About 10 minutes before kickoff a huge slap of lightning rang through Reser. It sounded like a gunshot two feet from your ear. We had some pretty nice rain storms go through. Even a 4 or 5 minute hail storm, in which the Beavers had to punt.

Overall, probably the tightest down to the wire college football game I’ve seen in my life. Oregon State still has some work to do, and we’ll see if it plays of against Louisville next week.